Session 5.2 Arguing Infernals
Lightning is sitting on the prow of their airboat, her legs dangling off the edge. Ceylin clomps up. "Making it easier for me to throw you off. Useful." "You'd be killing the only person here you can stand." It'd make it easier to kill the others, though." "Eh?" "Obviously, you'd be easier to kill one at a time." She stops to rub her chin thoughtfully. "Not that I couldn't take all three at once." "...and then you'd have no one to help kill the Mask. Good luck doing it alone." "Ultimately, a lot of people who've pissed me off have that to thank for their lives." "So once we're finished, you'll be killing all of us? I'll keep that in mind." "Nah. Just the ones who refuse to recognize me as their leader. Good time to start brushing up on your worship skills, incidentally." "I know you're our leader. You're the only one of us who hasn't got her thumb up her ass." "That's the spirit!" Ceylin gives Lightning a hearty pat on the back... which, coming from her, is more like being kicked by a horse. Lightning barely avoids pitching off the boat. "Agh!" "Tch. Can't even take a punch like that. A wonder we didn't have to carry you out of that fight with a bucket." "...says the woman who would've died if I didn't make a timely decapitation." She looks back at the Slayer - her hood is down and she's not wearing her mask. "Pff. The sun-girl barely scratched me. Wouldn't have lasted a few more rounds." "Then why'd you have to spend a week healing?" "Wasn't a week. More like three days." "It's still a while. You get the point." "Thought I could kill her in one attack. Turned out to take two. That's all there is to it." Lightning grunts and props her chin in her hands, staring down at the ground. "Might be a half-decent fighter if you actually learned to stand up and not spend all of your time running and hiding." "You might be a half-decent fighter if you knew when to get out of the way." Ceylin snorts. "You're never going to convince anybody to follow you sneaking around in the shadows." "I don't want anyone to follow me." "Then you're never going to change anything." "I can change plenty on my own." "Kill a person or two or steal something. You're never going to make empires or move whole societies." She grunts. "...all I want is my home back. But we can't go back." "Can so, as soon as we hand the Neverborn the Mask's head on a platter." "You think I'' could make it in day-to-day city life, Ceylin? Really?" "Malfeas is a city." "I don't like it there, either." Lightning buries her face in her hands and grunts again. "Then what the ''hell are you here for?" "To save Thorns. Pay attention, won't you?" "You're going to save it, but you don't like it." "I love it. It's my home, but I can't live there anymore." "... that's pretty messed up, and this is coming from somebody with a demon in her head." "That's Adorjan for you." She snorts. "So what, we save the city and you just go back to Malfeas to be miserable?" "I don't know what I'm going to do when we're finished. Not a clue." "That would explain why you don't care if anybody follows you," Ceylin remarks dryly. Lightning shrugs. "...there's nothing for me to do." "No plans? No anything?" "I could kill everyone. But like you said, I can't do that by myself, and none of you want to help." Ceylin grunts. "Fine, then. We take over Thorns, you become my personal assassin. Respectable monarch like me can't be seen going around killing just anybody." "...what? What about Malfeas?" "Ligier wants to establish a beachhead in Creation... that entails holding onto what we steal. Somebody's gonna have to rule that city after it falls. That somebody is going to be me." Lightning snorts and picks a splinter from the boat. "I'm sure he'll have his own personal passageway into your rooms. Where am I going to stay? We've just got done talking about how I can't stay in the city." "Wherever the hell you want to stay! You're one of the most powerful people in existence; start acting like it! 'sides, no matter where you go, it'll take you, what, half a day to run back if we need you?" Ceylin is, of course, exaggerating a little. She grunts again. "Fine, then. I'll be your lapdog." "Better'n any other plans you have now, right? And it's basically what you're doing anyway." "I was thinking about killing myself, actually." "So now I've just gotta make a note to knock you out after we succeed long enough for Niet to work her magic on you." "If you let her touch me I'll string your intestines over the city gate." "That's the beauty; you wouldn't be able to." "...don't you dare. I'll cut you to pieces now." "On the other hand, maybe your exaltation would get some more mileage out of somebody who's not a spineless, suicidal, unmotivated tool..." Lightning stands up and snarls, turning to face Ceylin. "And maybe yours would find better use in someone whose ego doesn't rival the Unconquered Sun's!" "So which part are you denying? Suicidal? ... nah, can't be. Unmotivated, well, you already admitted to that..." "There are reasons for all of that!" "... reasons don't make any of them less pathetic." "And you're pathetic because you have to puff yourself up by putting me down!" "If I beat you down enough, maybe you'll finally decide to do something about it." Lightning swings a fist for Ceylin's stomach. Perfect'd! Ceylin's stomach is the sort of thing that doesn't feel nice to hit. "I meant fixing yourself up, but that's second-best." "...you jumped-up bitch. I knew I should have been careful about what I wished for!" She punches the unyielding belly again. "... what the hell did you wish for?" Ceylin lets this one hurt her a little in exchange for rebounding the force back twofold on the Scourge's hand. Lightning goes reeling backwards, but is back on Ceylin in a second, punching arrhythmically at her. "My master - when I was an apprentice smith - he took me to a play of yours, and I wanted - desperately to see you perform again!" She spits disgustedly on the deck in between punches. The taller woman flexes the fingers of one hand as if starting to consider returning the favor. "Well, you admitted that you like something. Not a bad start." "You don't even bother to pretend!" In between punches Lightning kicks the much larger woman in the shin. "You disgusting pig! I knew you were a fool when you tried that little stunt - with the arrow - I was disgusted with you when you failed, I wished I could be so brave!" "Just round one. You've seen what I did to a deathknight... now imagine what I can do to those nobles this time around." Lightning makes a disgusted noise, her arms falling to her sides. "...if we even get a chance." Ceylin gives a dismissive snort. "The city will be ours soon enough!" "If Niet doesn't drag us further off track." "The more forces we get, the smoother it's going to go. Once we've crushed it, maybe Ligier will give us leave to move on to the Realm..." "...big dreams, brasshead." "Want me to write that as your epitaph? I'll work nicely when they have to rip up your tombstone to pave the floor in my palace." "Oh, you'd give me a tombstone? That's very generous of you." "The last thing I want is you popping back up as a ghost to harass me again." "I'll find a way to do it anyway. Just to irritate you." "Just have to bury you in a salt flat, then." "If you can even catch me." "This is after you commit suicide. If you push me into killing you, there won't be enough left to bury." "Oh, so you think I'm still going to? Even after you give me a job?" "Seems to pretty solidly be your plan so far." "You're an idiot, Ceylin." She doesn't sound very angry, though. "And you're a lot of other things, that included." "Other things, hmm? Like what?" Ceylin ticks them off on her fingers. "A caustic, over-aggressive bitch with no goals." Okay, so it's only one thing. "...that's only one thing. So on top of being an idiot, you can't even count. And I'm over-aggressive?" "Hey, I only want to kill the ones who piss me off." "So, everyone." That does make Ceylin grin a bit. "Nah. Just a select ten thousand or so." "I can take five thousand if you get the other five." "Deal." Lightning smirks - somehow it's visible, the skin where her mouth should be quirking up a bit - and offers Ceylin her hand. Ceylin shakes... although her hand is about big enough to encompass Lightning's whole forearm. Lightning shakes as best she's able, the smirk spreading into a grin. "Don't tell anyone or I'll kill you in your sleep, but you're not so bad." "... if you're anything like your patron, that means you're gonna kill me anyway." "I might be. You'll have to find out." Ceylin snorts. "Fair enough." "...and if you're anything like your patron, you'd rather walk around singing than do any actual work." "Well, singing and ripping my enemies in half. Gotta strike a balance." "Mmm. Why are you out here, anyway?" "... 's not that big of a boat." Smirk! "So you decide to go straight for me?" "I decided to go outside to maybe have a little privacy, but I didn't get it." "Then I'll let you moon by yourself." "Good." Lightning bends down and picks up her mask, then puts it on. "Don't crash the boat." "I'm not steering this heap." "Knowing you, you'd punch a hole in it. ...not that that's a bad thing, in the proper place and time." She gives the gigantic woman an almost gentle punch on the arm. "Let me know any time you need a hole punched in yourself." "It'd be like trying to swat a mote, brute." "Only takes one hit." "It takes longer for you to notice me and swing than it does for me to get out of the way." "Works out just fine as long as you get tired of dodging before I get tired of swinging." "Oh, that'd never happen." "Keep tellin' yourself that." "Adorjan never tires." "Everything gets tired once it's lost enough blood. ... now get outta here." Lightning punches Ceylin in the stomach again as she goes by. Ceylin flips the Scourge's retreating back off. Category:Exalted: The Green Knights